There are very few childhood memories of my father, a man who was already rushing towards old age by the time I was born. At 50, he was already overweight, working the graveyard shift at the old Joseph Magnin department store in San Francisco. He was always asleep by the time I got home from school, and I was ready for bed by the time he was getting ready for work.
He filled my childlike mind with so many tall tales that I believed as truths. He had a tall African American gentleman friend by the name of George Washington, and I was told that he was the father of our nation. He told me that the wrestler Kenji Shibuya was my uncle, a story I readily believed because he was the only person on television – other than Hashimoto the mouse – that looked like me. We watched monster films together, and he would often point out imaginary relatives out from among the crowds of people who were fleeing from Godzilla. Because he never disciplined my behavior or was never present when I was performing simple daily functions such as eating or homework, he was more like the funny neighborhood man than my father.
When we did communicate, however, it was always over television. He made me watch Big Time Wrestling with Hank Brenner on Saturday mornings, then introduced me to the Outer Limits and the Twilight Zone. He bred an intense love for horror/sci-fi/monster movies in me, and he would later regret this as I was slow to move out of my tomboy years.
Then there was Batman. I swallowed the Batman universe with gusto, developing a love for certain villains (Catwoman, the Riddler, the Joker, Ma Barker) and an intense jealousy over Batgirl. My father, who spent his days off away from the family inside movie theaters, indulged the family Batman love by bringing my sister and I to see the Batman movie. He patiently sat in his chair, surrounded by legions of screaming youngsters jumping up and down on seats yelling for Batman’s many adventurous feats. I remember throwing popcorn, cheering and laughing while occasionally turning to look at my father, who seemed to enjoy the experience. It was one of the only times I remember him enjoying anything from my youth, although I might attribute his general cheer to the absence of my mother.
Unfortunately, this Batman movie experience was the final act of wholesome American domesticity for me. What would follow was years of loneliness and mental abuse, while my father was relegated to become nothing more than a background figure in our lives. He was always too old to understand, too old to get involved and too old of a husband for my mother, who was about 20 years younger than he was. She made it a point to boast that the point of her marriage was for citizenship, and my father retreated behind an impenetrable wall of silence. He never revealed any of his past, even when asked, although I assume that age had something to do with his faltering memory.
When I was older, the only words he would utter would reflect his disappointment in me. He wanted me to have my mother’s nose. He wanted me to have my sister’s legs. He told me several times that I should not have been born. When I would go to the Mabuhay Gardens at night, he told me that I looked like a prostitute. Such things were only spoken as pure thought, never out of anger or during a fight. For a man who seldom spoke, these indelicate words were passed on to me as simple comments, as if such words would develop into a thoughtful conversation. Instead I laughed at his words, as any teenager would, although there were times when I struggled to find the man that enjoyed himself at the Batman movie with me.
Over the years, I learned to associate my father with Batman. My husband tells me that the Batman TV show was too childish, and not at all in keeping with the dark, brooding reputation of the true superhero that stalked through the comic book pages of Gotham. I am fine with the television show as it was, however. The Batman I associate with a happier father liked to speak of Holy things, use Shark repellent spray, leered at Catwoman and had the best dance on television. My father loved that dance.
(c)2014 Slow Suburban Death. All rights reserved
Your father was a complicated man. It’s hard to see all these different stories as one person